It
doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that with the iPad
selling so well over its opening weekend that we will have loads of
competing tablet computers coming to market very soon. One of the
tablet machines that we heard about back at CES in January was the HP
Slate.

The first glimpse we caught of the Slate is when
Microsoft's Steve Ballmer showed
the device off during his CES keynote speech. Some are already
calling the Slate an iPad killer and whether or not that turns out to
be true remains to be seen. InformationWeek reports
that some of the key
features that users are bemoaning the lack of on the iPad
are front and center on the Slate. Things like support for Flash, a
camera, SD card slot, and USB connectivity are all featured on the
Slate.

InformationWeek also
reports that HP released a video of the Slate in action this week
that was a scant 30 seconds, but offered enough details to stoke some
geek lust in many. The video of the device emphasizes the Windows 7
operating system, which makes the HP Slate much more extendable and
open than the iPad. HP is still mum on when we might expect the Slate
to hit the market, though it is widely expected to land this
fall.

Engadget has
a slick
chart that shows the difference between the key features of
the HP tablet and the iPad. On paper at least it appears that the
Slate has the muscle to defeat the iPad. The HP Slate will reportedly
cost $549, run a 1.63 GHz Atom Z530 processor, and have five hours of
battery life. That is about half the run time that the iPad promises.
The Slate also has a smaller 8.9-inch screen compared to the iPad's
9.7-inch screen and a 1024 x 768 screen resolution.

The
base iPad 16GB model is also about $50 cheaper than the entry-level
HP Slate. The main ingredient that the HP Slate lacks is the might of
the Apple marketing machine and the hoards of fanatically loyal users
that Apple boasts.

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This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled

Old fart that I am, my better judgment is telling me not to get in a war of words with the legend that is reader1.

However said old fart remembers a time before laptops, when pretty much all PCs were custom built. If I had to define the moment PCs went from "geeks" to homes, it would have to be windows98&98SE copied on CD-R. In hindsight MS wasn't even trying to stop piracy. And boy did THAT relaxed attitude pay off! Sure it was probably premeditated but as a matter of pushing things forward... I think MS should get more credit for the years between 1995-2002.

Had Sociopath Steve been the one calling the shots, I think it would be safe to say that computers would have had a much slower evolution.